Lorrie Whittington emailed me recently to introduce one of her projects,Artjunky.net. The site is "a contributor-based online art and design magazine, supporting artists, illustrators, designers, photographers and makers. Created by Lorrie Whittington and Stina Jones, and supported by a growing team of contributors, ArtJunky seeks to give creatives of all ages, disciplines, backgrounds, both emerging and established, a platform to showcase their work, profile new projects, design initiatives, techniques and tools of the trade."

I asked Lorrie a few questions about the new site...

With your own active blog and art practice, why did you and Stina decide to launch ArtJunky?

Why did we launch? Well, both Stina and I felt we wanted a platform for ourselves and other artists to talk about that which we are passionate about, and that is art and design.

Both Stina and I enjoy writing about art other artists, new projects, initiatives, events and that which inspires us, but we didn’t want to use our own blogs for this. Our personal blogs are exactly that, personal and intended as vehicles to talk about our own art and personal lives, and whilst we both occasionally like to feature other artists on our blogs, events we have attended, and exhibitions etc, there is a risk of our own blogs becoming an entirely public space.

We also wanted something that was contributor led, which would not be tenable on our own blogs.

Today, well known Swedish illustrator, Patrik Boberg of Piktograkifa has now come on board which is great, as we are looking for illustrators, designers with an international flavour to come on board, and talk about what is going on in their own neck of the woods so to speak, and their own unique perspective.

What audience are you hoping to attract? What void do you aim to fill?

Whilst there are many good online magazines profiling artists, illustrators and designers etc, the majority of the artists featured are already well established, and those lesser known are just not finding a voice. So, we want to profile lesser known artists as well as those already established. Plus which, both Stina and I have noticed a significant ‘ageism’ at work in the art and design world. There are many good artists and designers around who are over the magic ‘35’ who are largely ignored. We want to give them a platform too.

So, our target audience are professionals AND enthusiastic amateur artists, designers, photographers and creatives of all disciplines and mediums, and age groups.

How do you select your contributors?

Well thus far, Stina and I our reviewing our own network of artists and designers. Personally, I have been looking for people whose work I admire, who have a track record of blogging and writing, who are enthusiastic about art and artists etc, and whom I like.